USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Guilford > A history of Christ Episcopal Church in Guilford, Connecticut : an address delivered by the Rector, Rev. William G. Andrews, in September, 1894, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the parish > Part 4
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I Talcott Papers, ii. 9-13, forming vol. v. of Connecticut Historical Society Collections, from advance sheets.
2 Conn. Ch. Docs., i. 257-8.
3 Conn. Ch. Docs., i. 262
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Christ Church Parish, Guilford, Conn.
Richards, lost "much blood," though not, presumably, front blows that had reached any vital organ1.1
As Mr. Punderson lived more than thirty miles away, and his missionary journeys extended beyond the limits of Connecti- cut, his oversight of the parish was at first extremely limited. He officiated here in May, 1750, and in the September following he preached in the church, "to abundance," on a week-day.2 This is the first use of the building of which I find a record, and the walls then only consisted of beams and clapboards, while windows had hardly been thought of.3 It was not until the thirteenth of March, 1751, that the church was formally opened with a sermon by Dr. Johnson, from the words, "O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness " (Psalms xcvi. 9). At that date, moreover, it was voted to use the church regularly on Sun- days and holy days, and it was declared that its name was " Christ's Church," which was also announced as the name of the parish. Another vote appropriated the rates, if Mr. Punderson should consent, to putting in glass. This shows how mission- ary stipends might help even a parish which enjoyed only a small fraction of a missionary's services. It also shows that the Guilford collectors put a generous construction on the law. It would have been extremely easy to plead that their conforming neighbors were not getting as much religious instruction, even of the kind which they preferred, as the commonwealth of Con- necticut intended they should get, and on that ground to have turned the rates over to Mr. Ruggles, whom they could hear every Sunday. It would have been rather hard to meet this plea, for the conformists were not satisfied themselves with the attention which Mr. Punderson was able to bestow upon them. In the autumn of 1751 they determined, by his advice, to unite with North Guilford and Branford in obtaining the services of a candidate for orders for the winter. A little later, in December, 1751, and January, 1752, the three parishes, strengthened by the accession of the younger congregation at New Haven, and
I Contribut. to Eccles. Hist. of Conn., 453; Rec. of Third Soc., May, 1751, quoted in Smith's MS .; Conn. Ch. Docs., i. 262-3, 280, 290-1. The name "Cohassett," often occurring in the work last cited, should be read "Cohabit," the old name of North Guilford.
2 Conn. Ch. Docs., i. 263, 271-2.
3 Christ Ch. Rec.
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Early History of
guided by Dr. Johnson, formally constituted themselves a mis- sion. In August, 1752, they invited the Rev. Solomon Palmer of Cornwall, a native of Branford, to be their missionary. Mr. Palmer's brother and Nathaniel Johnson of Guilford were sent to notify the new missionary of his election. As he was then, and continued to be for more than a year longer, the Congrega- tional pastor at Cornwall, one imagines that the situation created by the appearance of the Anglican embassy might have been a rather embarrassing one. It seems that Mr. Palmer's inclina- tion to enter the Church of England, though known to his friends at Branford, had not yet become a purpose, and that the invitation was premature. And when his adhesion to episcopacy was made known to his Cornwall parishioners in March, 1754, it surprised them very much.1
In the meantime efforts were made to finish the church building, still only partly glazed. In October, 1752, the ward- ens, who were then Edmund Ward and Nathaniel Johnson, under the advice of the latter's brother, wrote letters to two clergymen in the distant province of South Carolina, asking for assistance. One of them was the Rev. Jonathan Copp, a Con- necticut man, who had lately visited Guilford, and may have encouraged the appeal. The other was, beyond question, the Rev. Alexander Garden of Charleston, commissary of the Bishop of London for that portion of the colonies, with oversight of the clergy. In that character the evangelist Whitfield, who had previously pronounced him, very truthfully, "a good soldier of Jesus Christ," had a taste of his fighting qualities, and the Guil- ford wardens allude sympathetically to the commissary's bearing in the conflict. They state that the parish then contained but twelve families, precisely the number of rate-payers in 1750. It is clear that the growth of the congregation was extremely slow, if indeed it was then growing at all. The wardens also state that some of their North Guilford brethren, who would have helped them, were, or had been, in jail for the non-payment of the minister's rates. Nothing seems to have come of these letters (drafts of which, probably in Mr. Ward's handwriting,
I Christ Ch. Rec .; Bailey's Trinity Ch., 7-9; Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 128; Gold's History of Cornwall, 49-51.
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Christ Church Parish, Guilford, Conn.
are among our parish documents), and it is even possible that they were never sent.1
In the summer of 1753 this parish attained the object which had been striven for a year or two before. It was combined in a mission with New Haven and Branford, and, as I infer, with North Guilford also, by the act of the Venerable Society. The missionary appointed was the man who had been serving them under a less definite commission, and who now removed to New Haven. In leaving his old post Mr. Punderson exchanged a stipend of £70 sterling from the Society, for one of £50. But thirteen persons in Guilford subscribed between six and seven pounds sterling towards his support, and if the other parishes gave as much in proportion, this difference was more than made good.2 The limitation of Mr. Punderson's territory to three adjoining towns (or townships) may have helped to terminate the struggle at North Guilford. An attempt had been made there in 1752 to save the rates of conformists by employing a young clergyman living at Middletown, Mr. Camp, who officia- ted "steadily " among them. It failed because Mr. Camp was not yet in the service of the Venerable Society, and had not "any place in particular assigned to him in his license " (from the Bishop of London).3 But in September, 1753, the conform- ists were granted land on which to build their church, 4 which makes it probable that Mr. Punderson's claim, in virtue of his appointment to the newly established mission, was felt to be too strong to be resisted, or, perhaps, that the lesson of toleration had at last been learned. How well it had been learned in the First Society, is pleasantly shown by the fact that at the close of the next year (December 4, 1754, ) that society " Voted, That the conformists to the Church of England shall have Liberty to have the Bell rung upon their feast & fast days or other Holli- days when it doth not interfere with any of the days for public worship of the Ith Society during the pleasure of sd Society. They paying the Bellman.5
I Christ Ch. Rec .; Dalcho's Church of South Carolina, 128-46, 163-74, 176-8, 361 ; Tyer- man's Life of George Whitefield, i. 142, 361-3, 395-40I.
2 Christ Ch. Rec .; Abst. of S. P. G. for 1762; Lett. of S. P. G. (Harwood MS.), vol. B. 23 (294); Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 21.
3 Conn. Ch. Docs., i. 298-9.
4 Smith MS.
5 Ibid.
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Early History of
Mr. Punderson was a generous man, and a diligent and suc- cessful missionary, as he had been a useful and honored Congre- gational minister, though Dr. Johnson thought him not well adapted to New Haven, now the principal scene of his labors.1 He remained in charge of the new mission for about ten years, or until 1763, but for that period the records of this parish almost fail us, while Mr. Punderson's own manuscripts, which might have thrown light on this period, were lost by shipwreck after his death .? A printed letter of the wardens for the year 1768 (of which I have made much use), informs us, however, that Guilford gained less than it hoped for from the arrangement. Mr. Punderson's work in the neighborhood of New Haven grew on his hands, even if the church in that town did not thrive. Six, if not seven, congregations were under his care within the three townships assigned to him, and this congregation, which had expected to see him once a month, at last did not see him at all.3 The desire naturally arose to become part of a less extensive mission, and with it at least the hope that Guilford might be the seat of the mission. But to this end the Society's demand of a house and a glebe, or tract of land, however small, for the missionary's use, must be met. Great efforts were there- fore made to secure money for the purchase of a glebe, and the statement of the wardens, in 1768, that they "had obtained everything " which they had "struggled for, except the Soci- ety's patronage," almost seems to imply that their efforts had been successful. Our defective records give us no information about this matter, but it would appear that the requisite amount could not be collected at home. Accordingly, as I suppose in 1763, the parish appealed for help to Mr. St. George Talbot, of the province of New York, who had shown much interest in the progress of the Church of England in Connecticut, and who did assist other parishes very liberally. He was understood to promise the sum of {200, and is said to have left a blank space
I Beardsley, Hist. of Ch. in Conn., i. 91-2, 166, etc. ; Conn. Ch. Docs., i. 311 ; ii. 21, 39-40, 42, etc.
2 Letter from Rev. X. A. Welton of Poquetanuck.
3 Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 128; Dig. of S. P. G. Rec .. 854 ; Abst. of S. P. G. for 1763; Lett. of S. P. G. (Harwood MS.) vol. B., 23 (293). The seven congregations, never all named to- gether, were those of New Haven, West Haven, North Haven, Branford, Northford, Guilford and North Guilford.
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Christ Church Parish, Guilford, Conn.
in his will for a bequest to the parish of that amount. He died about five years later without filling the blank, and though it was hoped for a while that the Venerable Society, to which he must have made a considerable bequest. would devote part of it to Guilford, all such hopes were disappointed, and Guilford had to take care of itself. And as we have explicit testimony to the effect that Mr. Talbot's anticipated gift was to be used in buy- ing a glebe, while the wardens do not say in so many words that a glebe was bought, and as I have found no evidence of such a purchase either in church or town records, it is nearly certain that the parish continued to lack, as it still lacks, this important part of its endowment, and that it was for this reason that it could not obtain "the Society's patronage" in the form of a stipend for a resident minister.1
Of course the services must have been conducted by lay- readers during the long intervals between Mr. Punderson's visits. And in 1759, when those visits were becoming still less frequent, a young man of twenty, already well qualified for this duty, took his place in the congregation. This was Nathaniel Johnson's stepson, Bela Hubbard, whose mother had become the second wife of Captain Johnson in 1755. Mr. Hubbard had graduated in New Haven in 1758, and had pursued his studies for a year under the direction of Dr. Johnson, lately made first president of King's College (now Columbia), in New York. He designed to take orders, but was too young to be ordained, and no doubt continued to study at home. Dr. Johnson recom- mended him to the parish as a lay-reader, and he probably began to act as such under the nominal incumbent, Mr. Punderson, at least as early as 1760. At the beginning of 1761 he was formally chosen reader by the two Guilford parishes, and held the posi- tion until he reached the age of twenty-four, required by the canons for taking priest's orders. As he became twenty-four in August, 1763, and sailed for England a little later, his term of service lasted more than two years and a half.2 At this date Mr. Punderson had already been transferred from the New
I Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 26-7, 55-6, 121. 123-4, 127-8 ; Lett. of S. P. G. (Harwood MS.), vol. B. 23 (2); Beardsley, Hist. of Ch. in Conn., i. 212-3, 238.
2 Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 128; Records of St. John's Ch., North Guilford ; Talcott's Guilf. Gen .; Sprague's Annals, v. 234.
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Early History of
Haven mission to Rye, and had been succeeded, in the summer of 1763, by the Rev. Solomon Palmer, whose services Guilford had tried to secure twelve years before. As Guilford and Bran- ford still formed part of the mission, it is not unlikely that the former town was visited by Mr. Palmer, as the latter is said to have been. His incumbency at Guilford must, however, have been even more purely nominal than that of Mr. Punderson. Mr. Hubbard, nevertheless, may have acted, technically, under Mr. Palmer's direction for a few months. But New Haven now desired to be made a distinct mission, while Branford, which Dr. Johnson would have had combined with Guilford and "their villages, Cohabit and Pauge " (North Guilford and Northford), not long after aspired to entire independence, although it had 110 church building. At all events Guilford and North Guilford, acting apart from Branford, but apparently with the expectation of help from Killingworth, invited Bela Hubbard to become their minister. They pledged £30 sterling towards his support, which provided him with the "title for orders" demanded by the canon, that is, the assurance that there was "some certain Place where he might use his Function." The Society, it was hoped, would erect these congregations into a mission, with suf- ficient additional salary to enable the missionary to live in com- fort. In the meantime provision had had to be made here, per- haps by Mr. Hubbard and his relatives, for the expenses of his journey, not far from £100 sterling. This was the posture of affairs at the close of our second period, early in 1764.1
The parish had evidently inade some progress, little as Mr. Punderson had been able to do for it. The unquenchable zeal of the laity was of more service than the infrequent clerical min- istrations which were obtainable. In October, 1763, Dr. John- son wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury that there were fifty families and as many communicants in Guilford. This enumer- ation is doubtless an estimate, and it must include members of both the parishes in the town. The same writer, perhaps a very little later, informed the Society that there were " 30 or 40 famn- lies " in both.2 It is, moreover, probable that at that time the
I Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 37-8, 39-45, 49-51, 103, 128; Absts. of S. P. G., 1764; Hist. of Ch. in Conn., i. 209-10; Bailey's Trinity Ch., 9, 53.
2 Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 54 ; Absts. of S. P. G., 1764.
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Christ Church Parish, Guilford, Conn.
North Guilford parish, formed by the secession at one time of a considerable minority from the Congregational Church, was larger than ours. As lately as 1810 it must have contained sev- eral more communicants, though fewer families.1 But assuming that there were only fifteen or twenty families in Christ Church in 1763, leaving twenty-five or thirty for St. John's, North Guil- ford, there had still been an advance since 1752, when there were only twelve. The scanty local records of the period furnish only two new family names which seem to belong to Guilford, those of Stone and Benton, though new Christian names are much more numerous. The name of Hubbard should doubtless. be added, and there must have been others. It is a fact too interesting to be passed over that Joel Stone, the infant son of Stephen, baptized here by Mr. Punderson in 1750, is commemo- rated to-day, as Colonel Stone, by a painted church window, containing his likeness in the dignified dress of a century ago, on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, in the Canadian town of Ganonoque, Ontario, of which he is reverenced as the founder .? And it is worth observing that the migratory impulse, which has cost Guilford so much, was already strong in the last century. It has wholly removed many names from the lists of this parish, while some which remain are borne by descendants of other branches of the same families. The old Registry Book of Christ Church, Stratford, supplies two individual names of interest. One is that of the venerable Andrew Ward, father of Edmund Ward, and grandfather of Bela Hubbard, and one of the origi- nal members of the Fourth Church, who became a communicant in the Church of England in 1750, at the age of eighty. The other is that of young Theophilus Morgan, doubtless a nephew of the first wife of Captain Johnson, and a resident of Killing- worth, baptized as an adult in 1754. Here we meet one of the earlier traces of attachment to the Anglican church in the parish of Jared Eliot, Samuel Smithson's son-in-law, who long before was himself almost persuaded to apply for episcopal orders.
Our third period begins with the return of Bela Hubbard from England in June, 1764, and covers about three years. Mr. Hubbard came home a priest of the Church of England, and
I Convention Journal, 1811 (reprint), p. 65.
Communicated by Mrs. N. A. H. Moore. See also Gan. Reporter, Dec. 15, 22, IS94.
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Early History of
brought with him, no doubt, a license to officiate from the. Bishop of London, whose jurisdiction embraced the colonial churches. But he did not come as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and Guilford was no longer recognized by the Society as even a part of one of its missions. Dr. Johnson had predicted this result, while he had pleaded the cause of the parish in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but its members continued to hope that help would soon be given them.1 The resources of the Society were no doubt heavily taxed, and it may have been really unable at that time to erect a new mission. But had those whom the Society represented been as eager to " episcopize " New England as they were sup- posed to be, the resources of the Society would have been more abundant, and Guilford, with the claim established by its long struggle, and supported by the powerful influence of Dr. John- son, would not have been almost wholly neglected. Our parish is an important witness to the real aims of the Venerable Society in its work among a people already provided with such Christian institutions as satisfied most of them. It sought simply to aid those, desirous of conforming to the Church of England, who were earnest enough and numerous enough to bear a large part of the burden themselves. It planted its New England missions where the soil gave the fairest promise of a vigorous growth ; perhaps not a bad example for other missionary societies in sim- ilar circumstances, though its rule bore hardly upon Guilford.
Mr. Hubbard, therefore, had to content himself with the thirty pounds sterling which his congregations offered him, increased by some private income of his own. In those days a country minister might perhaps live on what he received, but he could scarcely support a family on it. One mark of the Vener- able Society's favor he probably did bring back with him, and it remains as a memorial not only of his ministry here, but of that of the lay-ministers who served under him and after him. This is the folio Prayer Book, used here to-night, and bearing abundant marks of use during the later years of the colonial period, especially in those parts of the volume which a layman could read publicly.
I Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 53-4.
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Christ Church Parish, Guilford, Conn.
Mr. Hubbard's services were for a while required at North- ford, and he did work as an itinerant at Branford, New Haven, Saybrook, and even Litchfield.1 Of the three congregations which formed his permanent cure Killingworth deserves further mention. This name, it must be remembered, belonged then, and for many years afterwards, to what is now Clinton, the pres- ent Killingworth being then a society, or parish, in the same township, but known as North Killingworth. If there could be any doubt as to the identification of the eastern part of Mr. Hub-
....... #
BELA HUBBARD, D. D.
bard's cure with Clinton it would be removed by his own descrip- tion of the place as "a seaport Town 10 miles distant."? Jared Eliot, the Congregational pastor of Killingworth, who, after openly declaring in 1722 his doubts about the validity of his ordination, had found his doubts removed, nevertheless remained all his life friendly to the Church of England.3 He died in the spring of 1763, and before Mr. Hubbard's departure in the autumn it seems certain that a number of families at Killing-
I Lett. of S. P. G. (Harwood MS.), vol. B. 23 (166); Conn. Ch. Docs. i. 107.
2 Lett. of S. P. G., as in last note.
3 Beardsley, Hist. of Ch. in Conn., i. 28-30.
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Early History of
worth had made known their attachment to episcopacy, while others were understood to be ready to declare themselves con- formists.1 It may fairly be guessed, though I find no authority for affirming, that regard for Mr. Eliot had prevented any earlier attempt to establish a congregation of conformists. And Mr. Hubbard's language, in the letter to the Venerable Society just referred to, shows that at least as respects most of the new con- gregation, the final act of conformity took place after his return from England. Between thirty and forty families, he tells us, then conformed. Another contemporary authority gives the number of heads of families, at the close of 1766, as about thirty- four. This congregation must have been the largest of the three, though perhaps the weakest financially, in spite of the presence of two or three wealthy and influential men.2 They were apparently not strong enough to build a church, and this placed them at a serious disadvantage.
Less than two years ago (December 4, 1892,) I gave an account of Dr. Hubbard in this place. I need only say now that he was a man of extraordinary sweetness of character, while inflexible in his devotion to duty and to truth, and capable of playing a hero's part, as he did afterwards at New Haven, when in the face of the pestilence he stood firmly at his post, and even added, it is said, the duties and risks of a nurse to those of a pastor. His preaching undoubtedly did his hearers good, and he could say of the fathers of this congregation that they "gener- ally adorn the Doctrine of our Lord and Saviour, by sober, exem- plary Lives."3 To a large extent, no doubt, they came from that class of Congregationalists which used to "own the cove- nant " without becoming communicants. They came because their consciousness of religious obligation was so deep that they must be communicants when they might. And the letters of ths missionaries make it clear that they were more faithful in this respect than their successors are now, and that in all respects they were as good Christians as most others were then. It would be hard to find a better example of one fine type of Chris- tian living than is furnished by the unselfish, blameless, patient,
I Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 54. Killingworth is not named, but no other place can be meant.
2 Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 105-7.
3 Lett. of S. P. G., as above; cf. Conn. Ch. Docs., ii. 106.
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Christ Church Parish, Guilford, Conn.
beneficent life of Bela Hubbard, and what he was his people, who dearly loved him, must in their various degrees have aspired to be.
The outward growth of the parish seems to have been slight during Mr. Hubbard's incumbency. In January, 1767, a few months before it closed, he reported upwards of eighty families in his three congregations. As we must assign upwards of thirty families to Killingworth, we have about fifty for the two Guilfords, or the same number as we find in Dr. Johnson's letter of October, 1763. But as Johnson gives a smaller number in a nearly contemporary report, having been furnished, we may infer, only with estimates, there is room for a probable assump- tion that this congregation had increased a little. It would not have been strange, however, had there been a decided decrease. A powerful influence, unfriendly to growth, came into operation here and elsewhere during Mr. Hubbard's pastorate. The Stamp Act was passed in 1765, in violation of all the traditions of English liberty, since it involved the taking of men's money without their consent. Opposition to it was almost universal, far more so than the determination to resist other unconstitu- tional exactions by force, a few years later. The old lay-reader of Guilford, William Samuel Johnson, was perhaps the most important member of the Stamp Act Congress, called to obtain. the repeal of the act, and even his father thought the course of Parliament " very ill-judged." But Mr. Hubbard, with others of the younger clergy, and some not young, regarded it as " nothing short of rebellion to avow opposition," and their people generally agreed with them.2 Such an attitude must have done as much as anything could have done to check the growth of the church. And another unfortunate result fol- lowed, which was an additional blow to the hopes of the Guil- ford Episcopalians. This was the determination of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, adopted in 1766, in conse- quence of the commotions established by the Stamp Act, to establish no more missions in New England.3 For several years complaints against the Society had been frequent and bitter,
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